Lecture 1
What are HRM practices?
- Programs, processes, and techniques that actually get operationalized in the unit
“Things that happen”
VS
- The actual functioning, observable activities, as experienced by employees
“Actual practices and experiences”
5 core HRM practices
1. Employee relations and collective communication
• Employee relations concerns matters of overarching employment or collective
workforce policy, such as bargaining (the traditional focus of industrial relations),
and expression of the collective voice of employees.
• Current trends and challenges: changing nature of work; tele-working, e-HRM
• Importance of employees relations and collective communication for employee
commitment and retention à e.g. exchange theory (you give salary, workers want
to do something back)
2. Recruitment and selection
• One of the purposes of recruitment is to determine present and future staffing
needs in conjunction with job analysis and HR planning
• Selection – a linked but separate practice after recruitment – then involves the
identification of the most suitable person from a pool of applicants.
• Current trends and challenges: war for talent, unemployment vs tight labor markets
3. Performance management
• The name given to the formal conversation between line manager and employee
about priorities and their achievements
• HR designed process designed to align the workforce with the strategy
• Current trends and challenges: HRM analytics
• Effects on outcomes: expectancy theory
4. Rewards
• People are the largest single operating cost item of most business
• Using rewards to motivate employees and/or engender their active commitment or
engagement
• Current trends and challenges: bonuses, performance related pay, pay differences
• Effect on outcomes: motivation theory, efficiency wage theory (=>paying more pays
off)
• Non-financial rewards: learning and development
5. Training and development
• Training: the planned and systematic modification of behavior through learning
events, programs and instruction which enable individuals to achieve the levels of
knowledge, skill and competence to carry out their work effectively
, • Development: the growth or realization of a person’s ability and potential through
the provision of learning and educational experiences.
• Current trends and challenges: talent management, employability, learning
organization
• Effects on outcomes: psychological contract theory
• Employee provides: time, effort, trust
• Employer provides: benefits, security, promotion, salary
Lecture 2
Relevance of international HRM and comparative HRM
• Business and management have globalized
• A growing extensity, intensity and velocity of global interactions associated with
deepening impact, such that the effects of distant event can be highly significant
elsewhere.
• Management should be international and outward-looking
• Requirement to compare and learn from different nations and cultures
• MNCs need international management skills and knowledge transfer to subsidiaries
• Strategic and governmental processes are international and global
Various Theoretical Perspectives
Best practice perspective:
- Existence of a set of HRM practices that leads to superior organizational
performance
- Related to so-called high performance work systems: ideal combination of practices
VS
Best fit practices:
- Importance of fit between HRM practices and internal and external context
- Effect of HRM practices dependent on for example fit with organizational strategy.
Perspectives on HRM !!!
1. Universalistic
à The viewpoint that there is a set of best HRM practices and their adoption is going to
generate positive results regardless of the circumstances associated with organisations.
- Universalistic, or best practice, models: deliver enhanced organizational
performance
- Organization as ‘black box’
- Pfeffer: high performance work system à employment security/stability; selective
hiring of new personnel; self-managed teams/decentralization; high compensation
contingent on organizational performance; extensive training, etc.
2. Contingent perspectives:
à Suggests the most appropriate style of management is dependent on the context of
the situation and that adopting a single, rigid style is inefficient in the long term.
- add intervening variables between HRM practice/outcome, usually strategy,
organizational context, external environment, or organizational learning capability.
à strength of the effect is dependent on the third variable (whether practices fits
the organizational model)
, 3. Configurational perspective:
à The development of coherent bundles of HR practices that reinforce one another. An
appropriate configuration of HRM, it is also suggested, must show external fit and be
matched to the needs of a particular business strategy.
- internal dynamics of HRM system/how different elements combined synergistically
in different patterns/bundles, representing different orientations. à how the
individual perspectives work together (the fit)
4. Contextual perspective: significance of context, not merely as contingent variable
but as framework for HRM decision-making. à context is the overarching thing. it’s
the one thing that determines how effective HRM perspective are.
Factors affecting HRM policies and practices
National level factors:
- Culture, institutions and the national business system
Home (parent) country factors:
- Domestic cultural, legal, political, and economic factors, and dynamic business
environment
- MNCs deeply rooted in national business systems of country of origin: ‘country of
origin’ effects
Contingent factors:
- Organizational age, size, structure, ownership, stage of internationalization, life cycle
stage, trade union presence and stakeholder interests.
Organizational factors:
- Corporate and HRM strategies
Firm-specific factors:
- Senior management’s attitudes towards internationalization/international strategy,
structure and corporate culture of the firm; policies relating to primary HR functions
and internal labor markets.
Findings for directional convergence (direction is the same; increasing à the difference
remains the same)
Convergence increases in:
- Strategic potential of HR department
- HR professionalization (HR talent for the future)
- Individualization of employee relations
- Increased information to employees
- Contingent compensation systems
No convergence in:
- Staff ratio
- Employee development
- HR configuration (final convergence à)
- HRM practices (final convergence à)
Final convergence: difference between 2 countries becomes smaller and eventually end up
in the same point (become the same in the long run).
SO..
What are HRM practices?
- Programs, processes, and techniques that actually get operationalized in the unit
“Things that happen”
VS
- The actual functioning, observable activities, as experienced by employees
“Actual practices and experiences”
5 core HRM practices
1. Employee relations and collective communication
• Employee relations concerns matters of overarching employment or collective
workforce policy, such as bargaining (the traditional focus of industrial relations),
and expression of the collective voice of employees.
• Current trends and challenges: changing nature of work; tele-working, e-HRM
• Importance of employees relations and collective communication for employee
commitment and retention à e.g. exchange theory (you give salary, workers want
to do something back)
2. Recruitment and selection
• One of the purposes of recruitment is to determine present and future staffing
needs in conjunction with job analysis and HR planning
• Selection – a linked but separate practice after recruitment – then involves the
identification of the most suitable person from a pool of applicants.
• Current trends and challenges: war for talent, unemployment vs tight labor markets
3. Performance management
• The name given to the formal conversation between line manager and employee
about priorities and their achievements
• HR designed process designed to align the workforce with the strategy
• Current trends and challenges: HRM analytics
• Effects on outcomes: expectancy theory
4. Rewards
• People are the largest single operating cost item of most business
• Using rewards to motivate employees and/or engender their active commitment or
engagement
• Current trends and challenges: bonuses, performance related pay, pay differences
• Effect on outcomes: motivation theory, efficiency wage theory (=>paying more pays
off)
• Non-financial rewards: learning and development
5. Training and development
• Training: the planned and systematic modification of behavior through learning
events, programs and instruction which enable individuals to achieve the levels of
knowledge, skill and competence to carry out their work effectively
, • Development: the growth or realization of a person’s ability and potential through
the provision of learning and educational experiences.
• Current trends and challenges: talent management, employability, learning
organization
• Effects on outcomes: psychological contract theory
• Employee provides: time, effort, trust
• Employer provides: benefits, security, promotion, salary
Lecture 2
Relevance of international HRM and comparative HRM
• Business and management have globalized
• A growing extensity, intensity and velocity of global interactions associated with
deepening impact, such that the effects of distant event can be highly significant
elsewhere.
• Management should be international and outward-looking
• Requirement to compare and learn from different nations and cultures
• MNCs need international management skills and knowledge transfer to subsidiaries
• Strategic and governmental processes are international and global
Various Theoretical Perspectives
Best practice perspective:
- Existence of a set of HRM practices that leads to superior organizational
performance
- Related to so-called high performance work systems: ideal combination of practices
VS
Best fit practices:
- Importance of fit between HRM practices and internal and external context
- Effect of HRM practices dependent on for example fit with organizational strategy.
Perspectives on HRM !!!
1. Universalistic
à The viewpoint that there is a set of best HRM practices and their adoption is going to
generate positive results regardless of the circumstances associated with organisations.
- Universalistic, or best practice, models: deliver enhanced organizational
performance
- Organization as ‘black box’
- Pfeffer: high performance work system à employment security/stability; selective
hiring of new personnel; self-managed teams/decentralization; high compensation
contingent on organizational performance; extensive training, etc.
2. Contingent perspectives:
à Suggests the most appropriate style of management is dependent on the context of
the situation and that adopting a single, rigid style is inefficient in the long term.
- add intervening variables between HRM practice/outcome, usually strategy,
organizational context, external environment, or organizational learning capability.
à strength of the effect is dependent on the third variable (whether practices fits
the organizational model)
, 3. Configurational perspective:
à The development of coherent bundles of HR practices that reinforce one another. An
appropriate configuration of HRM, it is also suggested, must show external fit and be
matched to the needs of a particular business strategy.
- internal dynamics of HRM system/how different elements combined synergistically
in different patterns/bundles, representing different orientations. à how the
individual perspectives work together (the fit)
4. Contextual perspective: significance of context, not merely as contingent variable
but as framework for HRM decision-making. à context is the overarching thing. it’s
the one thing that determines how effective HRM perspective are.
Factors affecting HRM policies and practices
National level factors:
- Culture, institutions and the national business system
Home (parent) country factors:
- Domestic cultural, legal, political, and economic factors, and dynamic business
environment
- MNCs deeply rooted in national business systems of country of origin: ‘country of
origin’ effects
Contingent factors:
- Organizational age, size, structure, ownership, stage of internationalization, life cycle
stage, trade union presence and stakeholder interests.
Organizational factors:
- Corporate and HRM strategies
Firm-specific factors:
- Senior management’s attitudes towards internationalization/international strategy,
structure and corporate culture of the firm; policies relating to primary HR functions
and internal labor markets.
Findings for directional convergence (direction is the same; increasing à the difference
remains the same)
Convergence increases in:
- Strategic potential of HR department
- HR professionalization (HR talent for the future)
- Individualization of employee relations
- Increased information to employees
- Contingent compensation systems
No convergence in:
- Staff ratio
- Employee development
- HR configuration (final convergence à)
- HRM practices (final convergence à)
Final convergence: difference between 2 countries becomes smaller and eventually end up
in the same point (become the same in the long run).
SO..
